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Motorola Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois and was founded on 25 September, 1928. Motorola specialized in wireless network equipment like cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products are set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television.
Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones and it was also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) before 2004. In 1990s, Motorola pioneered in may instances like "mobile phone" with DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC, and "clam phone" with the StarTAC. It made a come back by the 2000s with the Razr, but lost market share in the second half of the same decade. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's open-source Android mobile operating system and released its first phone on 2 November 2009 which used the newest version of Google's open-source OS, Android 2.0, in the form of the Motorola Droid.
The company's first products were the battery eliminators which were devices that enabled battery-powered radios to operate on household electricity. However due to progress in radio technology, battery-eliminators soon became out dated. Paul Galvin learned that radio were being installed in cars, so he challenged his engineers to design an inexpensive car radio that could be installed in most vehicles. As a result of which his team was able to demonstrate a working model of the radio at the June 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This further brought home enough orders which kept the company in business.
However, Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's new car radio, and thus was created the name “Motorola” which came from "motor" (for motorcar) and "ola" (from Victrola). The company sold its first Motorola branded radio on 23 June 1930, to Herbert C. Wall of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for $30, with Wall went on to becoming one of the first Motorola distributors in the country. The Motorola brand saw such popularity that Galvin Manufacturing Corporation later changed its name to Motorola Inc. The present "batwing" logo was also introduced in 1955 which was created by award-winning Chicago graphic designer Morton Goldsholl.
In the year 1971, Motorola showcased the first hand-held portable telephone. In September 1983, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the DynaTAC 8000X telephone which came to be the world's first commercial cellular device. Cell phones became two-thirds of Motorola's gross revenue by 1998. The company was also very good in semiconductor technology, including integrated circuits used in computers. It was known for the 6800 family and 68000 family of microprocessors and related peripheral ICs.
Motorola also showcased the world's first working-prototype digital cellular system and phones using GSM standard in Hanover, Germany in 1991. Further in 1994, Motorola introduced the world's first commercial digital radio system that integrated paging, data and cellular communications, and voice dispatch in a single radio network and handset. Motorola also introduced the world's first two-way pager which allowed users to receive text messages and e-mail and reply with a standard response in 1995.
Motorola however failed to repeat the success of the highly popular RAZR phone, with competition from new smartphones like Apple's iPhone, leading to downfall in its mobile phone business. To give you a perspective, in 2006 the company's mobile phone market share was about 23% but by the end of 2007 it dwindled to 12%, falling to third place behind Samsung. It further reduced to 6%, by 2009. The company's shares also more than halved during the period and caused heavy losses.
Having suffered lost of $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company had to demerged into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on 4 January, 2011. Motorola Inc. was renamed Motorola Solutions and is the actual direct successor to the original company after the demerger from Motorola Mobility. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Google in 2012, and later was taken over by Chinese company Lenovo in 2014.
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